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In this paper, we develop a solar exergy map concept and conduct a comprehensive case study to show how it is utilized and how it is significant for practical solar applications. Based on the exergy content of the solar radiation, the performance of a photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) system is evaluated for different Indian cities, namely Bangalore (latitude 12°58′N, longitude 77°38′E), Jodhpur (latitude 26°18′N, longitude 73°04′E), Mumbai (latitude 18°55′N, longitude 72°54′E), New Delhi (latitude 28°35′N, longitude 77°12′E) and Srinagar (latitude 34°08′N, longitude 74°51′E) for a year and for different cities of U.S.A., namely Chicago (latitude 41°50′N, longitude 87°37′W), Las Vegas (latitude 36°10′N, longitude 115°12′W), Miami (latitude 25°46′N, longitude 80°12′W), New York (latitude 40°47′N, longitude 73°58′E), Portland (latitude 43°40′N, longitude 70°15′W), San Antonio (latitude 29°23′N, longitude 98°33′W), San Francisco (latitude 37°47′N, longitude 122°26′W), Tucson (latitude 32°7′N, longitude 110°56′W) and Tulsa (latitude 36°09′N, longitude 95°59′W) for different months of January, April, June and October. For the first time, the development of exergy maps for the exergy of solar radiation as well as the exergy efficiency of PV/T system is done for the above-mentioned Indian and American climatic conditions. It is found that the predicted exergy efficiency is in good agreement with the experimental results for the climatic conditions of New Delhi, India. It is observed that the average exergy efficiency is highest in Bangalore from January (28%) to April (32.6%) and from September (32.5%) to December (32.4%) and it is highest in Srinagar from May (29.5%) to August (26.8%) for Indian climatic conditions and for American climatic conditions, the PV/T system gives the best performance in terms of exergy efficiency in Las Vegas (32%) and Tucson (32.5–31.5%) in April and June. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]